Ill Met by Moonlight
by Josephine Sawyer
Summary: Ginny meets a stranger who knows her too well at a Halloween Ball.


**Disclaimer:** This story includes characters and situations that are part of the Harry Potter universe, which is copyright J.K.Rowling, Scholastic, Warner Brothers, Bloomsbury, etc. No copyright infringement is intended and no money is being made in the production of this fanfiction.

**Author's Note: **Here's the revised version, with a real ending! Thank you to The Creatress, who was of much assistance with the ending, and to everyone else who reviewed (MadeNew, Intricacy, Vlucia, and Hope777). This is as much as a sequel as you'll get, but hopefully it has just a bit more closure!

**Ill Met by Moonlight**

Ginny should have known, from the very invitation that had arrived by owl two months ago, that the Holyhead Harpies' Halloween Ball would be nothing like the Yule Ball of her Hogwarts days. The invitation had been printed on beautiful vellum in sparkling black ink; delivered by quite possibly the proudest owl Ginny had ever met. It was addressed to "Ginevra Molly Weasley, and guest" and included its own R.S.V.P. card. Quite a departure from the surprise, almost second-thought nature of the Yule Ball her third year.

And as different as the very invitation had been, so was this ball different. She had been an overlooked addition – lucky to find someone to take her at all – and now she was a guest of honor. She had been an awkward girl of thirteen, now she was an accomplished and beautiful woman of twenty-three. Before she had frantically panicked about her robes and ended up spending a year's worth of allowance on a rather dreary example of sartorial grace. Today she wore absolutely gorgeous robes that had miraculously appeared, folded, at the foot of her bed. She had been surprised about if for a moment, and then assumed they came from Harry. Who else would do something so extravagant and kind? And besides, Harry needed to do something to apologize for missing their anniversary to spend time with Ron and Hermione. Before, her robes were worn at the hems and baptismal white, with not so much as a colorful sash to draw attention, cut high and puritanical at the behest of her mother. Now she was clothed in slate-grey backless dress robes that flattered her athletic figure, trimmed with navy blue velvet giving the whole ensemble a rich and elegant look, and cut straight across the front just below her collar-bones. Before, her face had been bare and scrubbed clean and pink, covered in too many freckles for her taste. Now she wore a glittering dark grey feathered mask with navy blue accents, perfectly matching her robes, dangling sapphire earrings and a navy blue velvet choker necklace, with smoky glass slippers on her feet.

Before, the ball had been held in the Great Hall of Hogwarts, hastily given a dance floor and converted for the purpose. Now, it was a real ballroom that she set foot in, lit by beautiful chandeliers, tasteful music played by an enchanted harp in one corner – a live band would be arriving later – and tables sprinkled around the edges. It was enough to make one gasp. Everything before had been too young and too awkward, a school rehearsal. Everything tonight was adult, serious, and real. Or as real as it could be, for a Halloween ball.

"Close your mouth, Weasley," her team captain, Emma, whispered. "You're ruining the atmosphere."

Ginny laughed at that, and they walked toward a table. "I was expecting the Yule Ball at Hogwarts," she whispered in return. "This is… well, this is different."

Emma smiled at her knowingly. "Of course this is different, we aren't giggling schoolgirls, now are we? We're international Quidditch celebrities."

Ginny laughed. "And I'm not here with Neville Longbottom," she whispered.

Emma shook her head. "You aren't here with anyone," she hissed. "You aren't to spend the entire evening wrapped up in Mister Potter. Your fans would demand a refund." She grinned cattily. "And so would his."

Ginny sighed. "Well, I don't know his costume, anyway," she said as if that solved matters. Of course, he knew her costume, and of course he had planned on monopolizing her – why else would he have bought her the robes? – so it didn't matter what Emma thought. Ginny, at least, would not be guilty. She could blame him. Emma smiled warmly, then handed Ginny a glass filled with neon pink punch and walked away to talk to some investor or another.

Ginny looked around for Harry's familiar broad shoulders and messy black hair. No luck. She hummed along to the music and wandered out towards the windows. There was a small rose garden on one side of the ball room, paved with cobblestones and with a little Chinese bridge and a gazebo at the center. She wandered. Harry would be here soon, and would find her, and they would be reconciled in the most romantic way possible.

If she was honest with herself, Harry wasn't exactly acting in a way that she would describe as penitent. He had only become more distant and more closed since she graduated Hogwarts, had only spent more time away from her and with Ron and Hermione since he had forgotten their anniversary, and in general had been taciturn and silent around her for nearly two months. But she had assumed that he would make it up to her at this ball. He had to; why else would he have given her the robes? She took a sip of punch, impatiently, and thought that soon enough he would have to apologize for being late as well as everything else.

The punch burned its way down her throat. It was strong. She coughed a bit in surprise and then crossed her arms angrily. Where was Harry? There was a soft laugh behind her, a familiar laugh, but unidentifiable and certainly not Harry's. She turned to see a man in pitch black robes, smirking at her with discomforting blue eyes shining from beneath a black mask. Not Harry, certainly not Harry. "What?" she snapped. "Who are you?"

He approached her silently, and she glared at him. "Answer me!" she snapped again.

He just laughed. "What is the point of masks," he said softly in a distressingly familiar voice, "If they don't allow one to hide?"

Ginny snorted, watching Emma holding court across the room, and took another sip of her punch. "It's all a game, to make it seem more romantic, so that people pay the Harpies more money to live out some absurd fantasy they have involving one of the players or another,"

He laughed again, this time condescendingly. "Of course," he answered, "From a certain viewpoint. And yet, from another, that very element can make it all the more enjoyable – to turn other people's fantasies against them beneath the secure anonymity of a mask."

Ginny shook her head. "For your information, sir," she said coldly, "I'm waiting for someone. And you're not him."

The man just smirked and took another two steps closer to her. "He will not come," he said calmly.

Ginny looked up at him sharply. "What?" she asked. He was smirking confidently.

"Mister Potter. The man you wait for; your lover. He is not going to come." The words were spoken with such deadly confidence and with such utter disdain that Ginny shivered.

"How do you know that?" Ginny asked, in a whisper, not sure what she was asking about.

The man just smiled. "He and I are old friends," he said simply.

Ginny frowned. "Who are you, then? I've known Harry since I was ten – a friend of his is a friend of mine. And you certainly don't sound like a friend." Not a friend of Harry's, at least.

"We met when he was training to become an Auror," the man said simply, and Ginny was silent. Harry hadn't told her of any new friends he made in Auror training, but he hadn't told her much of anything about Auror training, except that he got through it and was made an Auror after only six months (record time). "It surprises me he failed to tell you."

Ginny sighed. "Harry… Harry is a very introverted person. He doesn't share things about his life." She could feel her companion step still closer to her; she could feel his breath on her neck. "I understand that," she said quietly.

He laughed. "Walk with me," he said calmly, and she obeyed half without thinking about it. They walked in silence, along the circuitous path, between the rose bushes, over the small bridge and finally sat in the gazebo. "It is a pity that you are not privy to Mister Potter's thoughts." Ginny sighed and looked down into her half-empty glass. "But it is not a statement on your person, Ginevra."

She shivered. It was the first time he said her name, and something about it was familiar and frightening. She glanced up at him in fear and then shook her head. It was just the use of her full name, she decided. "Please," she said, quietly. "Call me Ginny, if you have to use a name. Don't call me by my full name. No one has since…" she trailed off for a moment. "No one ever has."

He smirked. "Dressed as you are, grown as you are, regal and elegant, you expect me to call you by a child's name?" He laughed.

"It's my name," she answered simply.

"It needn't be."

"I'm not regal or elegant." He just laughed, as though that were response enough. "I'm not!" she insisted. "I'm just plain old Ginny Weasley."

"Every atom of your being belies that," he said softly. She laughed bitterly, and glanced up at the ballroom, where the band had arrived and people were beginning to dance. "Is this what you have been reduced to?" he said, with sad wonder, and more than a hint of pity. She glared up at him and stood, ignoring his comments.

"It's a Halloween ball," she said frankly. "I'm a guest of honor. I should be dancing." She held out her hand to shake. "I don't suppose I'll see you again," she said, and he just smiled as though to say she would not be that lucky as he took her hand and – instead of shaking it – brought it up to his lips in altogether too familiar a gesture. She frowned; it was all she could do to hold back a true scowl. She turned and walked away, feeling his gaze upon her all the while.

"Enamored of an ass," he mumbled, and she could barely hear it.

She knew her red hair was enough to identify her, and it was probably the reason that, no more than a minute after she walked back into the ballroom, she was swept up into a dance by a rather meaty fellow with altogether too much dark brown, curly hair. It was all she could do to keep her chin up and make it through the dance with a smile on her face, through his cabbage-smelling breath and sweaty palms on her back. She nearly ran to Emma as he tottered off to buy season tickets.

"Please tell me that was someone important," she whispered to her captain.

Emma smiled winningly. "All of our fans are important, dear," she said with a smirk. "But I have no idea who the gentleman you just danced with was."

Ginny cast Emma a withering glance and was just able to say "Rot in Hell," before she had to stamp on a smile and greet another guest asking for a dance.

It was what had to be five hundred dances in, and Harry was an hour late, and she was hiding behind a pillar to avoid some of her most repulsive fans when the all too familiar stranger approached her again. She was almost glad to see him; she had fallen so far. "Hiding?" he asked.

She winced. "What's the point of a mask," she asked, "If everyone still knows who I am?"

He laughed. "A good question," he responded. "They make the evening more romantic; and every ticket here was sold on romance." He paused and approached her more closely. "You might have charmed your hair, to confuse people."

"I thought I would be occupied," she answered, not sure why she was telling the truth. "But," she abruptly halted, wondering what to say. The stranger knew she was waiting for Harry, and he knew enough to know that Harry wasn't there. But Ginny still wondered if she could actually say it. She sighed. "But that doesn't seem to be the case." She paused again. "And I like my hair!"

He smirked. "Say it," he said. "Harry Potter has abandoned you." Her feet went cold and ice crept up her spine. "Again," he added.

She felt rooted to the spot. "No, he hasn't," she answered. "He's probably just stuck at work." Even she was not convinced by her explanation. "I'm sure there's a reason," she finished lamely.

"He has abandoned you – even if he is still working he has chosen that rather than be here with you. Admit it."

Ginny winced. "Why are you doing this?"

"Only for your own good," he replied without pause.

"Who are you?"

He didn't even reply.

"Why should I trust a word you say if you won't tell me who you are?"

Still no reply.

"How do you know all of this, anyway?" she asked petulantly. "Harry," she said, the name catching in her throat. "Harry's abandoned me." She could feel the tears coming, but she blinked them away.

"Dance with me," he said softly, and offered his arm. She took it without thinking.

He was a good dancer – better than anyone she had yet danced with tonight, and probably better than Harry, although Ginny couldn't tell because she had never danced with Harry. His feet were sure, his step confident, and his manner firm. Dancing helped her stop thinking about Harry – or rather, helped her stop blaming herself for Harry's inevitable abandonment. "Why did he desert you?" her partner asked, although it was obvious from his tone of voice that he knew the answer.

"He's bored with me," she answered.

"He's a fool," he responded quickly.

"I love him," she responded just as quickly and with a warning edge to her voice.

He laughed. "He's distant, cold, selfish, and he's abandoned you – and you love him? Hah."

Ginny could barely keep up the dance, she was so shocked. "Who are you?" she asked.

"You would find out sooner if you could stop asking," he responded.

"Yes, I love Harry," she whispered. "He may be an idiot, but I love him. I always have, and I always will."

"He hardly deserves your devotion."

"I don't care."

"He is beneath you."

"He defeated the Dark Lord."

"By sheer dumb luck." He laughed. "Harry Potter has always been very lucky."

"You don't know that. He has the worst luck of anyone I know. You don't know him, and you don't know me. You're just some Quidditch fan."

He laughed. "I know you. I know you both well enough to know that he's beneath you. And I hate Quidditch."

Ginny's breath caught in her throat. "Then why are you here?"

"I would never have missed seeing you in those robes."

"What are you talking about?" she snapped. "Harry gave these to me."

He laughed. "Of course he did, Ginevra."

Again, the name sent shivers up her spine. "_Don't _call me that."

He just smiled. The song ended and she nearly ran off the dance floor in search of Emma. The team captain was talking to a portly man in ministry robes, each holding a glass of champagne. "Emma," Ginny whispered, feeling bad about breaking up the conversation – which would certainly bring more money and publicity to the team – but thinking that there were other things significantly more important. Emma seemed dubious at first. "What is it?" she hissed.

"Emma, I think I have a stalker."

Emma rolled her eyes. "What makes you think that, Ginny? Someone knew who you were beneath that mask?"

Ginny sighed angrily. "Take me seriously, for once! That man, the one in the black robes," she pointed at the stranger. "He knows who I am, he knows about Harry, and he says he broke into my house to deliver these robes!"

Emma rolled her eyes. "You're being ridiculous, Ginny," she said, annoyed. "Harry got you those robes. He's just some fan, taking credit for something because he thinks you'll find it romantic."

"He hates Quidditch!" Ginny hissed.

Emma shook her head. "Ginny, you have a fan base I will never understand. Your exploits with Mr. Potter sort of bring that out, don't you think? Now, please let me talk to this ministry official before you lose us all government funding this year."

Emma turned and walked away. Ginny sighed and tried to slip to a corner, but couldn't escape before another awkward, nervous Quidditch fan was begging to dance with her. At least this one was a fan of her through Quidditch, and not nearly as unnerving as the stranger.

He was watching her, she could tell. He would stop to talk to some of the more elegantly dressed older attendees, or ministry officials, but mostly he would stand by a wall and watch her, nursing a drink. She put the thought from her mind. She could get through the party and then tell the ministry if anything untoward happened.

And she had to admit that everything that the stranger had said had a grain of truth in it. Harry _was _an idiot; or at least, he was behaving like one. He _had _found the Horcruxes mostly based on other people's cleverness and his own brash luck, and if that wasn't enough, he was lucky enough to have been protected against the killing curse, twice, through magic that even Dumbledore couldn't have understood or controlled. Harry was very lucky – she figured most anyone could have done what Harry did, provided simply that they were possessed of a brave enough soul to sacrifice themselves. And she could have named dozens of other people who did just that in the war; went in, knowing they would die, and did.

But to say, for all that, that Harry was beneath her? It was absurd. No one would ever say that, except – apparently – this stranger. Harry was perfect; kind and caring and brave and strong and the hero of the Wizarding World. She was just Ginny Weasley, a girl of average talent who no one had ever heard about until she became Harry Potter's girlfriend and no one much cared about until she became a Quidditch player. The dance ended and her partner left, probably put out by her distant expression. She approached the punch table.

Harry was perfect, perhaps, but he hadn't been particularly kind or caring lately. He had neglected her, forgotten about her, and stubbornly insisted that it was she who was being absurd. He had promised her he would be here, but had yet to show, which was either a sign of unkindness or a sign of cowardice or both. None of which changed the fact that she loved him; she always had and she always would. Wizards were luckier than muggles in certain ways; there were tests you could do to check and see who your true love was (and they were much more accurate for wizards, although never foolproof), and so Ginny had known from age ten that she and Harry were soul mates. That's simply how it was. They loved each other, and that was enough. Or, it should have been.

She sighed. What if she was the exception; the one case in a million where love wasn't enough, the one case in a thousand where the test was wrong? Or maybe something had changed since she took the test; some cruel element of fate (the options were endless) had stepped in and severed her link with Harry. What if she and Harry weren't soul mates at all, or weren't any more?

But she loved him. She held on to that emotion, held it tightly. It hadn't changed since she was ten. It was constant, one thing that told her she and Harry were still soul mates, still had to be together; one thing that hadn't been torn apart by the war.

And when she thought of it that way, it was painfully obvious. She felt a chuckle behind her, as if someone was listening in to her thoughts. She shivered, and turned, to find the stranger. "What do you want?" she asked. "Haven't you upset me enough?"

"It's for your own good," he answered again.

"Who are you?" she asked. He didn't reply. "Why won't you tell me who you are?" He still didn't reply. "Why are you doing this?"

"You can figure out for yourself who I am," he responded coolly. "And I am acting out of pity; it has been too long that you have made a fool of yourself over a childish obsession, Ginevra."

Again, the name, and again the familiar voice sending shivers up her spine, turning her feet to ice. It was impossible, he was dead – dead nine times over, even – but it could be no one else. No one else had taken an interest in her for anything other than Quidditch, anyway. She reached for her wand, but she had left it at home; transportation was provided by the Harpies (and apparition while intoxicated was strictly discouraged) and she hadn't expected to meet up with Lord Voldemort at a ball. She swallowed the last of her punch, hoping that the alcohol would make her brave enough to stand up to him. "You were never known for kindness, or pity."

He smirked, half laughing, eyes glittering without malice, clearly confident that she had figured it out. It was impossible that he was happy. He was only happy after killing something. He should be raging – he never liked people to know who he really was; when they did, they wisely kept their distance. "But still, you simply love me."

"I told you to leave me alone," Ginny insisted. "I want nothing to do with you. I threw you in a toilet! You tried to kill me. You would have, if Harry hadn't saved me. He killed you for me."

"He killed me because he has a hero complex. And if you hadn't gone against me, I wouldn't have had to kill you."

"That's a lie," Ginny insisted. "You needed to kill me to get out of the Diary."

Tom laughed. "I'm corporeal now. Have I killed you?"

Ginny gulped. "You're not… This is impossible. It's all some sick joke! Who are you?"

Tom just laughed. "Dance with me," he said, and held out his hand again.

"No!" Ginny almost shouted.

"Oh, come now, don't make me do something you'll regret," he said, and she only glared at him stubbornly in response. "Always so stubborn, Ginevra; it does you no good. It doesn't matter if you dance or not, you still can't run away – it would be unseemly. And there are so many innocents here, you wouldn't want them injured." Although his tone was half joking, she knew he meant it. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and walked with him out onto the dance floor.

"Why do you want to dance?" she asked through gritted teeth.

"If you had been stuck in a Diary for fifty years, movement would be just as tempting to you." Ginny scowled in response, and he added, "It distracts you from your fear and hatred, and you can't run away if I have a secure hold on your hand."

Admittedly, that was not much of a better answer. "What do you want, Tom?"

"The same thing I always wanted."

"You have that, now. What do you want with me?"

He laughed. "Look at yourself. The life you're living is false, pathetic, it is so much less than it could be. Do any of these people know that you single-handedly held off the Dark Lord for nine months when you were only eleven years old? Harry Potter couldn't do that."

"Harry defeated you when he was an infant," she said quietly.

"Lily Potter defeated me when Harry was an infant." He corrected. "Her sacrifice killed me then, just as Harry's killed me five years ago. That Harry survived, through all of it, merely proves that he was lucky." He laughed. "What does it matter to you? You've wasted your life on him – you should be angry."

Ginny shook her head. "I'm angry at you, not him. He's done nothing wrong."

"Except lead you on and stand you up repeatedly," he answered, and laughed. "Ginevra Weasley, you can stand up to the Dark Lord himself; why not Harry Potter?" He looked down at her almost fondly, as though she were an adorable pet, or a sweet child who continually amazed.

"Harry wouldn't kill me."

Tom laughed. "So, because he poses no threat, you refuse to assert yourself?"

"I love Harry," she insisted. "We love each other."

Tom laughed. "Maybe when you were ten," he said. "But you are far too dark, Ginevra, too proud to love a simpering dolt like Potter."

Ginny said nothing, only danced. Finally, after a few minutes of tension, she chanced a glance up at him. "What do you want with me?" she whispered. "Why are you bothering me?"

Tom laughed. "You poured enough of your soul into that Diary your first year that my soul cannot rightly be called my own," he said off-handedly. "And what's Ginny without Tom?"

"What's Tom without Ginny, you mean," she corrected automatically. "Just words on a page."

He said nothing; bristled slightly at the comment but forced his mouth up in a smirk. They danced silently until an overweight, aging fan requested a dance, and as Ginny spun away on the older man's arm half relieved, half unwilling, she lost sight of Tom, and he melted into the shadows.

She didn't quite remember how she got home that night; her last memory of the evening was of a greasy fan with sweaty palms that she wanted to scourge from her consciousness enough to warrant guzzling a ridiculous amount of punch. She woke the next morning, sprawled out on top of her bed, red hair fanned out around her, in one of her worn and soft linen nightgowns, with a splitting headache. She stumbled to the bathroom and gazed sullenly at her face in the mirror, dark circles under her eyes marring her pale skin. She hadn't looked half that bad after the Yule Ball.

At the Yule Ball, there had been no alcohol. She groaned, and dropped a couple of instant-sobering pills into a glass of water. They fizzled as they dissolved and she gulped down the potion with relish. Her headache began to fade, slowly. She turned on the water for a shower.

Breathing in the steam, she tried to recall the previous night. It was all a blur, and although she could have sworn the impossible had happened – Tom Riddle was back – she doubted that she could tell Harry from Tom in the obviously drunken state she had been in. That had to have been it. It was Harry all along, playing a noble game to be romantic (and perhaps fair to her Quidditch teammates who had to put up with fans all night), and talking in riddles. She had imagined Tom. She had imagined all of it. And, truth be told, the ground felt more solid beneath her feet than she remembered it, her body more substantial, as if she was awakening from a long dream. When she turned off the water and stepped out of the shower, her bright green towels seemed brighter than she was used to, and the sunlight pouring in from behind her curtains had a real quality to it that surprised her.

She re-entered her bedroom to find the dress-robes she had worn last night callously tossed onto the ground. She supposed she had forgotten about them in her haste to make it into her bed last night. She carefully picked up the beautiful robes and folded them in her arms, gasping at what was underneath.

There was her mask, and her shoes, and something she didn't remember in the slightest – a small leather-bound book with bronze reinforced corners and yellowed parchment pages; the name "G. M. Weasley" embossed on the top right-hand corner in golden script. She picked it up, her mind racing back to her first year and a shiver of dread running up her spine. But she was different now; she was no longer an awkward, shy, terrified girl of eleven, but a confident, beautiful, and courageous woman of twenty-three. She set aside the dress and picked up the diary, returning to her bed. She quickly flipped through the pages, to find them empty, all except the first. There was familiar, neat but a bit cramped, handwriting on it: four lines of some poet she had never read.

_Be as thou wast wont to be;  
See as thou wast wont to see:  
Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower  
Hath such force and blessed power._

Slowly, the ink seeped into the parchment and Ginny frowned, confused. She thought for a moment of owling Hermione to ask what the lines meant, or at least who the poet was. But then she realized she had someone more brilliant and subtle even than Hermione at her fingertips. She pulled a quill from her bedside table, and with a smile began to write.


End file.
